Atlantic Coast Conference Chips Away at SEC’s Dominance

Louisville’s Lamar Jackson (8) and a stable of talented Atlantic Coast Conference quarterbacks have been bolstered by improving defenses around the league.Credit
Andy Lyons/Getty Images

BLACKSBURG, Va. — The persistent smears of Atlantic Coast Conference football have subsided. Florida State won a national championship in 2013, and Clemson had a near miss in the title game last season. The emergence of Louisville and its Heisman Trophy-contending quarterback, Lamar Jackson, has given the league another reputable team, one of six from the conference that have spent time in the Top 25 this season, and one of the four to make the Top 10.

So when John Swofford, the A.C.C. commissioner, glanced over his shoulder here Thursday night inside Lane Stadium as the Miami and Virginia Tech teams warmed up, he knew he did not have to deal in hope and public relations any longer. The A.C.C. is marching up the ladder in Power 5 football because it is improving its depth.

“We’re really good at the top of the conference right now with Clemson, Louisville and Florida State,” Swofford said. “Miami and Virginia Tech are close to being back where they had been. So I talk about our football the way I talk about our basketball. It is pretty brutal competitively within the league itself, and that’s what is important from a fan standpoint and a reputation standpoint.”

Virginia Tech (5-2) is a good example of the A.C.C.’s improved balance. Under the team’s first-year head coach, Justin Fuente, the Hokies have rebounded from back-to-back 7-6 seasons. They hammered Miami, 37-16, with the help of eight sacks, and the program looks rejuvenated with its 6-foot-2 defensive backs and physical defensive linemen like Woody Baron.

Despite the defeat, Miami, rebuilding under its first-year coach, Mark Richt, also looks a lot more capable than the Hurricanes team that was walloped by Clemson, 58-0, last season. But the Hurricanes, after starting the season 4-0 and rising to No. 10, have lost three in a row amid injuries to six key players on defense and an unsteady offensive line.

It remains unlikely that the A.C.C. will ever match the fan fervor across the 14 programs of its most dominant rival, the Southeastern Conference, or even its success. But A.C.C. programs have closed the gap, many observers say, by making big commitments to football, especially on defense.

The SEC used that focus and investment as its formula when it was building its reputation with seven straight national titles in the past decade, and the A.C.C. has learned from it. This season, the defensive coordinators Todd Grantham (Louisville) and Brent Venables (Clemson) both are being paid more than $1 million, and their counterpart at Virginia Tech, Bud Foster, is not far behind. Miami now leads the nation in tackles for loss (71), and Virginia Tech is projecting the same culture of aggressiveness that once made it a feared opponent under the former coach Frank Beamer.

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But better defenses are built around better players, and that takes more than one hire, or one year, to change.

“This conference has got to get more of those defensive linemen, but the defensive lineman, the big guy that can run, are the hardest to recruit because everybody wants them,” said Tommy Bowden, the former Clemson coach and television analyst. “Sometimes you have to look at an offensive lineman who can really run and try and move him to the defensive line, but you get a lot of resistance doing that. Their father, or their mentor, played offensive line and they think they have an N.F.L. future, so it’s hard to move them.”

One remedy is to recruit junior college players, a strategy that the SEC has exploited, but that can be difficult. Some colleges, including a few A.C.C. members, do not offer a curriculum suited to bringing in junior college players, Bowden said. Clemson had a strict rule against recruiting junior college players when he coached there, but they can be difference makers. When Florida defeated Ohio State for the 2006 national championship, the Big Ten commissioner, Jim Delany, complained that the SEC had gained an unfair advantage by recruiting junior college players.

Another option that can infuse a defense with talent is to move a flashy wide receiver, or an athletic tight end, to the other side of the ball. Alabama’s defense has scored eight touchdowns this season, and many of its defensive stars were receivers and running backs in high school.

While it waits for some of its defensive changes to yield results, the A.C.C. is being carried by six players — Clemson’s Deshaun Watson, Florida State’s Deondre Francois, North Carolina’s Mitch Trubinsky, Virginia Tech’s Jerod Evans, Miami’s Brad Kaaya and Louisville’s Jackson — who are on the watch list for the Manning Award, which goes to the nation’s top quarterback. The passers have enhanced the A.C.C.’s reputation as an offense-first league, and it may yet get another chance to prove it has gained on the SEC on a big stage.

If No. 4 Clemson (7-0) can beat No. 13 Florida State (5-2) next weekend, the Tigers could be on a direct path back into the College Football Playoff. On Thursday, Swofford noted that the A.C.C. is 7-1 against the SEC in rivalry games during the past two seasons.

“The SEC has competitively earned respect with those national champions,” Swofford said. “The thing I wanted to see us do, and I think we’ve done it, is bring our football to a level that is perceived to be equitable to our basketball.

“We haven’t sustained it in football the way we have sustained it in men’s basketball, but our strength right now, top to bottom — and I have been in this league over 40 years — is the strongest I’ve ever seen it.”

A version of this article appears in print on October 22, 2016, on Page D5 of the New York edition with the headline: A.C.C. Tries to Chip Away at the SEC’s Dominance. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe